I believe Simon Yates is clean, says cycling chief

Ismael LynchMay 25, 2018

Simon Yates retained the overall lead in the Giro d'Italia as Elia Viviani claimed his fourth stage win of the race on Wednesday.

The stage did not introduce any changes in the general classification of the race: Simon Yates still holds the pink jersey, Lopez is 7th, Bilbao is 8th.

"I'm really happy", he said, speaking on Eurosport.

"Basically, I just have to hold on for as long as possible. There's going to be guys trying to do insane things in the last week".

Dennis, 27, finished 14sec ahead of Germany's Tony Martin of Katusha-Alpecin with Dumoulin of Team Sunweb third at 22sec off the pace.

Astana's rider Luis Leon Sanchez has spent a very solid and aggressive race, attacking for many times during the 17th stage of the Giro d'Italia.

Britain's Chris Froome (Team Sky) put in a solid effort for fifth place in a respectable - but hardly stellar, for his standards - time of 40:35.

Dutchman Dumoulin, the world time trial champion, took 75 seconds out of Yates, but had started the day two minutes and 11 seconds down in second place.

"I felt good in the first half". I was dying in the final 10km.

"This is a big day for me to jump back into the top 10", the Australian said. Unfortunately for the fans I may have to be a lot more defensive. We'll see. I have a bigger gap to the guys behind him as well - it's not only Tom.

"I'm really happy", he said. "I hope there won't be any surprises in the future but for now I don't see any reason to doubt his..."

Overall leader Yates lost less time to second-placed defending champion Dumoulin than many observers had predicted.

The 25-year-old Mitchelton-Scott cyclist powered his way to 22 in the 34.2km course to tighten his grip on the crown, despite his overall lead being cut to 56 seconds.

However, France's Thibaut Pinot lost more than three minutes on the stage victor to drop to fifth overall, 1 minute, 8 seconds off Italy's Domenico Pozzovivo, who occupies the final podium position.

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